Is Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) Dead?

AMG says so: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:acfqxqr5ld0e

"Died: Jan 6, 2006"

The dust blows forward and the dust blows back.

He's still alive but that's one day off of Syd Barrett's dod iirc.

http://ubu.artmob.ca/video/flash/flvplayer.swf?file=Corbijn-Anton_Some-Yoyo-Stuff_Don-Van-Vliet.flv

So, I guess he was alive when that was made, at least...

...though barely.

what in the world

ask.com says the same http://uk.ask.com/music/artist//55418

they're just sucking in the amg database

One day after his guitarist?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article789387.ece

Harry Duncan, who hosts the In the Soul Kitchen show on KUSF, managed Captain Beefheart between 76 and 78. He might know. Harry told me in August that Beefheart was alive but ill.

xxp oh yeah you're right, didn't look that closely !

He sounds so weak in that Corbijn film -- and that was 15 years ago.

yeah, i feel like i've been hearing "he's very ill" for a long time now ...

Yet, even though he may not be in top shape, that article is obviously vandalized then.

he should probably get a normal, human heart if he wants to live

Captain Leafheart would be a healthy man to this day

Should probably also retire from his airline job and start enjoying his retirement, at his age.

Should get Tennille to pull her weight a bit more...

"he should probably get a normal, human heart if he wants to live"

on the contrary - it'a amazing he managed to live so long with that heart.
medical scientists should check him out - it might be helpful to others as well

I just want to know how he went from looking like the meaty guy on the cover of Spotlight Kid to the scrawny dude w the mustache inside of about a year in the early 70's.

yeah that always baffled me as well

ha, i thought maybe he had MS, but the first google result of "Captain Beefheart MS" says "Don Van Vilet (aka Captain Beefheart), the Rock 'n' Roll singer, does not have MS."

Then again, the first Google result refers to CB as "the Rock 'n' Roll singer."

But wtf -- this is getting really odd. I thought at first I had either a) it was just a typical AMG mistake or b) forgotten about his passing entirely. I had no idea no one actually knew what was up with him. And that Anton Corbjn doc is so needlessly artsy-fartsy, it doesn't clear things up in the slightest.

seems to be fairly active art-wise http://www.artnet.com/artist/17294/don-van-vliet.html don't know if the stuff he's displaying is new or not.

ha i kinda like him as a "rock n' roll singer"

Just recently saw his SNL performances from 1980. Super good stuff, and at the end of each he had this look of childlike wonder and surpise at being cheered on by the audience. Really charming. He always seemed like a good guy.

hmm... copied the SSN (redacted) into the search at http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/ssdi.cgi

ame Birth Death Last Residence Last Benefit SSN Issued
DONALD VAN VLIET 11 Nov 1940 06 Apr 2003 (P) 95747 (Roseville, Placer, CA) (none specified) (redacted) California

dates don't tally exactly, but could it be him?

You have Captain Beefheart's social security number?

Looks like we all do now!

only from searching on that site for don vliet :-)
anyway, its unlikely to be him as his birth certificate's at http://www.beefheart.com/zigzag/pictures/pics/birthbeef.gif

I don't care if he's a public figure, do not post social security numbers on this site again.

I was gonna say, seems like asking for trouble...

Glen?

yes?

His middle name

Okay

so he's not dead, right?

...ok... re "redacted" that appeared to be publically-available information that I obtained by doing a simple search on the rootsweb site above and quoted only as a unique reference to that record in rootsweb's database. anyone wishing to try to misuse that SSN in any way could retrieve that and thousands of others by querying the same page (hell, put in "Smith", what could you do with a dead person's SSN anyway? )
but.. hope you I understand posted in good faith, I do understand yr skitteriness about it, I wouldn't dream of doing it again.
xx

xxp no, I don't think he is dead now.

maybe it wasn't really him ; )

did he used to be?

maybe he rose again!

xp

would be kind of amazing if he died and nobody knew.

amazing and... sad.

and unlikely. But you better hope this thread doesn't start a rumour that spreads across the internet and ends up on snopes.com

Though obviously allmusic.com will get the blame.

headline: "don van vliet, a retired tailor with the same name as a legendarily reclusive musician, has died. in 2003."

Though obviously allmusic.com will get the blame

I blame Ned

Just don't blame me. But he sure as shit wasn't dead during this performance of "Hot Head" from SNL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_KRrhwgX3A

But he might have been on the way there during this crazy fucking interview with Letterman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQs8dka52H4

Man, doing some YT hopping from that led me to 2 of Zappa's last interviews as he was dying, which I'd not seen before... bearded and thin and very weak. So sad.

There goes a genuine maverick. Rest in peace Don.

RIP u big fuzzy madman genius

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghg13ZObXJk

RIP

"I was reaching for an eggplant and someone was in my way so I drew back. And then someone else said to me, 'Go for it.' Go for it? Is that what they say nowadays? That's so horrible. I was so shaken up I had to leave."--Beefheart interview

can i politely suggest that anyone who doesn't think jack white at least was genuinely influenced by Beefheart should actually go listen to some more white stripes? beginning with this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwhNUq8tA_I

BBC seems to have a habit of listing some bunch of droppable names who were "influenced" by the artist whenever they do an obit of someone significant like DVV

but its pretty obv why, isn't it? be awesome if some dudes who loved, say, the chilis and had no idea who beefheart was went out and checked a beefheart youtube or two as a result. they might even love his music.

it always just looks like some no marks saying "HI REMEMBER US?" tho. i don't think it matters in any way shape or form but sometimes the "influencees" fall so far short of the incredibleness of the obituee that it's like "don't fucking bother"

wd srsly give more of a shit about Big Flame's saying goodbye than any of those other dudes and I don't even know who Big Flame are tbh

not sure how beeb journo citing some bands who once said they liked beefheart in an obit is an example of said bands being all "HI REMEMBER US" you know what i mean?

yeah i know i just want this moment to go unsullied by shiteness

i find cranking frownland up one more time scours clean the memory that oasis are appara beefheart fans

Noel Gallagher has probably repped for every dude who ever recorded with a guitar prior to 1975

It's like Bono saying "this album really influenced me" about nearly every album ever recorded.

'Frownland' is probably one of the best opening tracks of all time. It's like a blueprint for a better world.

Everybody knocking the BBC for claiming the Red Hot Chili Peppers were influenced by Beefheart is aware that Cliff Martinez (you know, the drummer from Doc at the Radar Station) was the drummer on the first two RHCP albums, right?

rhcp seems plausible, franz ferdinand and oasis maybe less so. whatever. can only speak for myself when i say beefheart's musical influence on me goes a lot further than just "this is exactly what i wanna sound like"

RIP you big desert crazy.

i totally believe the chili peppers love beefheart, esp flea and frusiante...

the whole thing is kinda obnoxious, sonderangerbot is dead on, lots of ppl have inlfuenced me and i've never been in a band that sounded remotely like them...beefheart esp to me was more just the whole approach and way of thinking abt music

musician pet*r G*rd*n reflects:

To put it bluntly, Captain Beefheart changed my life and set me on the
musical path which i am still following.

I met Don when I was a 17-year-old senior at Taft High School in Woodland
Hills, in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. I would drive over to Don’s
house in the nearby Canoga Park hills with my friend, Richard Benedon.
Richard had met one of the Magic Band at Ernie Ball’s Guitar and was invited
over the house, where all the members of Captain Beefheart and the Magic
Band lived and rehearsed. The band was always rehearsing as a group or
individually practicing.

Captain Beefheart's music, among many things, was about precision and
clarity of vision. He saw music as shapes, rather than musical forms, and
there was a exactness in what he expected. It was not pretty, at times: he
could be quite a tyrant. Don would often summon musicians and demand that a
particular part be performed immediately. If there was a mistake, and there
usually was, the musician was ordered downstairs to a practice room to
perfect the part.

Don saw himself as a visual artist - he regarded his music as painting with
sound. His primary musical reference was Howling Wolf. I can still picture
that Howling Wolf record cover propped up against the bookshelf beside him.
But he was trying to find an additional octave beneath Wolf, and was
fascinated by the vocal multiphonics he could achieve with his deep
cavernous voice. I tried to engage him in discussions about John Cage, which
he acutely dismissed with a comment about following the “50-50 method: you
play whatever you want and half the notes are bound to come out right.”
Aleatoric music in a nutshell, via Captain Beefheart.

And before I had heard of Duchamp, I saw Don Van Vliet take a slice of toast
with melted cheese, lacquer it, and nail it on the wall.

Frank Zappa had loaned Don an Ampex ¼” reel tape recorder, and Don recorded
demos for the album they were working on at the time (“Trout Mask Replica”)
in the living room. He would often experiment with microphone placement, at
one point putting a microphone in a bush outside of the house. Sometimes
other musicians would drop in to play on a song, and Don would have them
play instruments which they were least familiar. Don had Ian Underwood
playing guitar, or Artie Tripp playing piano. But the core of the band was
Zoot Horn Rollo, Winged-Eel Fingerling, Rocket Morton, The Mascara Snake,
Drumbo - though I knew them as Bill, Mark, Victor, John, etc.

RIP you giant

i totally believe the chili peppers love beefheart, esp flea and frusiante...

they have a drummer in common in fact, right? Jack Irons?

be awesome if some dudes who loved, say, the chilis and had no idea who beefheart was went out and checked a beefheart youtube or two as a result. they might even love his music.

not sure if this is really something a Beeb obit should be expected to do tho - not that this rly bothers me, as mild tokenism goes, just saying

Chuck that quick obit was ten times more soulful than the BBC's, thanks.

I was offline yesterday writing, so this is the first I heard. I did always hope he could have been well enough to make one last public appearance, at the very least at a gallery opening. But I'd heard MS was hitting him hard this past decade. Beefheart was a big influence on me, not as a musician, but as a music fan. I lived with my grandparents and mother when I was young, and my uncle also lived in the house when I was a baby. For some reason, he left behind his record collection, and I was only about 4 when I discovered Trout Mask Replica, which was obviously a children's record with the funny pictures and song titles. I used to recite the "squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast 'n' bulbous" all the time. The album certainly warped/shaped my perception of what normal music was supposed to sound like.

Around '93 I contacted the Michael Werner gallery and made a little progress toward getting an interview with Don under the pretense of talking solely about his painting (which I was certainly interested in too), but hit a wall. When I learned later that Polly Harvey had a phone friendship with Don where they'd talk regularly, like every week, I thought, of course. It's so rare that his fans aren't dorky men. Of course he'd talk to a woman. Wouldn't it have been cool had she visited and filmed it? Maybe give him an award for saving the planet.

For all we know, aliens could have visited in 1969 and picked up a Beefheart album, and decided Earthlings were interesting enough to let them live and see what happens. Thanks for saving us Don!

I remember hearing "Willie the Pimp" when i was 17 or 18 and it blew my mind, i played that track over and over again.

RIP DVV

yeah willie the pimp. too bad the captain & zappa couldn't get it together to make a whole album a long those lines. Bongo Fury has its moments, but i'm not nuts about a lot of it. are there good bootlegs of that tour?

Listening back to all his incredible music for the last 16 hours has been a great reminder.
Will pay tribute on the air with two hours dedicated to the man and his band, for sure.

NIce remarks fastnbulbous. Liked Chuck's piece too, except I don't know what prompted his capricious anti-free jazz remarks of 1980 - this is a man who was friends with Ornette Coleman, after all! And called him "one of the greatest artists today".

Currently listening to the original "Bat Chain Puller" (too drunk to do an A-B comparison with the released version tho.)

After being stunned by this news, I realized it was me who started this thread a year ago. Very sad news, indeed.

That SNL version of Hot Head still absolutely smokes, though.

Nobody here needs it obviously, but I wrote a "Beginner's Guide to Captain Beefheart" for the Voice website; here 'tis. (Wikipedia sez the original Bat Chain Puller will be released in 2011, btw.)

I can't imagine either what prompted such a remark, someone must fill me in.

I was always struck by what a visual chameleon Beefheart was - and how cool he looked with a tache, and how uncool he looked when he got rid of it and just had the beard. Still not sure about the fish head.

from byron coley:

BEEFHEART

pappy with a khaki sweatband
old bowed potbellied barnyard
that only he noticed
the old fart was smart

these words were my calling card
used as defense against squares
throughout northern new jersey
in the early years of the 1970s

incanted while playing pinball
they sometimes piqued the interest
of a teenaged hipster chick
lollygagging ‘round the bowling alley

spoken in the classroom
or the dining hall or locker room
they were more a way of creating
a bubble of madness to protect me

from the goddamn normals
who dogged my every sullen step
trying to impress me with words
& gestures i could not understand

but the poetry of captain beefheart
at first even more than his music
got under my skin and layed eggs
that have continuously erupted

i would never be fool enough
to say i enjoyed all the captain’s bands
or records or tours, but most of them
were fine beyond belief

and provided a glimpse of something
so weird, yet apparently sustainable
that it was a balm to my soul and also
to the souls of the many other losers

who i would come to enjoy and respect
over the next decades of my life
years that would have been far bleaker
perhaps even devoid of splendor

without the model he provided.
so let this stand as a toast
to the ghost most holy-o
imperfectly human, yet umblemished

as a saint to the disaffected youth
who found sense & succor
in his vision of things as they might be
& perhaps even, as they truly were

goodnight, don
goodnight

–byron coley

sounds cool:
BEEFHEART
To celebrate Captain Beefheart and his life on Earth, Robyn Hitchcock and his Imaginary Band will perform the album 'ClearSpot' and a few other Beefheart compositions at the Garage,London, June 3th and Wychwood Festival, Cheltenham, June 4th."In the early Soft Boys we tried to cross Abbey Road withTrout Mask Replica", says Robyn: "It didn't really work but itwas some hybrid. The most exciting show I've ever seen wasBeefheart and The Magic Band in 1973. This won't be as accurateas the John French/Magic Band gigs a few years back, but ClearSpot is quite a party album, and we're planning to have quite aparty". The Imaginary Band will be Paul Noble and Terry Edwardson guitars and bass, Jenny Adejayan on cello, and StephenIrvine on drums.

"I'd have to say that I like Trout Mask Replica, which came out in '68, all the way through Bat Chain Puller -- I mean, they represent the diversity of Beefheart. I'm a fan of the really innovative spirit of Beefheart came with the Magic Band, and they really hit it off in '68."

- Jon Huntsman

I knew this was you!

huntsman otm. all americans should vote for this idiot!

has there been any more word about this?
On June 24, 2011, Gail Zappa announced on the official zappa.com website that the original Bat Chain Puller would be released "[t]his year. December most likely."

maybe huntsman knows.

I don't have much (or know much about) Captain Beefheart, otherwise I'm sure I'd be doing the unfair thing of trying to gauge if he was sincere or just playing to his image. Just thought it was an interesting quote.

I do know enough that I wondered if he had the year right--seemed early--and sure enough, Trout Mask Replica came out in '69. But I make those kind of mistakes too.

No Safe as Milk, no credibility. Jon Huntsman is wrong on Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, wrong for America.

http://www.mrc.org/Profiles/Williams/image002.jpg
Is Jon Huntman's Beefheart knowledge gap harming -- or helping -- his campaign? We'll have the story after this break.

blatant pandering to the coveted "psych mom" demographic

Tomorrow: Herman Cain, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards host a symposium on Pussy Galore.

This is true:

"Brotzmann, the tenor sax player, one of the greatest alive."

- Bill Clinton, when asked by the Oxford American to name a musician people would be
surprised he listened to.

has there been any more word about this?
On June 24, 2011, Gail Zappa announced on the official zappa.com website that the original Bat Chain Puller would be released "this year. December most likely."

― tylerw, Tuesday, 8 November 2011 21:04 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I guess Wild Man Fischer maybe too!

No Safe as Milk, no credibility. Jon Huntsman is wrong on Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, wrong for America.

― the wheelie king (wk), Tuesday, 8 November 2011 22:25 (Yesterday) Bookmark

c'mon, i love safe as milk but you know if mitt got a wildcard debate question on beefheart he'd be all in there with some bland "oh i'm all about i'm glad!, vote romney" shit. props to huntsman for going all out.
(still an a+ post regardless)

God bless Mormons with left field music taste, I've always got a Stewart's orange 'n' cream soda waiting in my fridge for them.

When I posted the Huntsman quote, I didn't realize someone had linked to the whole piece on the politics thread earlier:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/09/06/jon_huntsman_passes_the_captain_beefheart_test.html

If you read the whole conversation, Huntsman does seem pretty knowledgeable...unless my own limited knowledge about Captain Beefheart makes me easily fooled.

lol "China Pig Hammer"

he seems like a nice guy though.

That's funny (had to check), and the kind of thing I'd miss. You try to impress me with how much you love "Sugar Mountain Killer," I'm all over that.